The invention relates generally to the determination of an electric motor's operating efficiency while the motor is running without the need for any additional sensors, other than standard current and voltage sensors on the input side of the motor.
Motor-driven systems are generally believed to use a majority of the total electric energy produced. Of the total number of motor-driven systems in use, only a small fraction have their efficiency and health monitored. Due to the costs of conventional monitoring systems, the motor-driven systems that are monitored are often the costlier motors above 500 hp. However, motors below 200 hp make up a majority of the motors in service and consume a majority of the energy used by all motors in service. Further, these motors of 200 hp or below often operate at no more than 60% of their rated load because of oversized installations and/or under-loaded conditions. Consequently, many motors operate at a reduced efficiency, which results in wasted energy. Without an efficiency monitoring system, the wasted energy that results from a motor operating inefficiently often goes unnoticed. Accordingly, often the first step towards maximizing energy efficiency of a motor is to determine or measure the efficiency of the motor.
Systems for energy usage monitoring or efficiency evaluation of electric machines are important for overall energy savings. These systems are often expected to be implemented in an integrated product because of many common requirements such as data collections. At a fundamental level, energy efficiency of a motor can be determined by the ratio of a motor's power input to the motor's power output. Motor terminal voltages and currents are often used to determine a motor's power input. In industrial plants, the motor terminal voltages and currents are readily available from motor control centers (MCCs) that have potential transformers (PTs) and current transformers (CTs) preinstalled for protection purposes. Because of the PTs and CTs that are often preinstalled in MCCs, to measure terminal voltages and currents often brings no additional costs in terms of added sensors for data collection. As such, conventional efficiency monitoring systems often rely on the terminal voltages and currents as measured by the MCCs to determine input power. However, many traditional efficiency evaluation methods or monitoring systems also require the measurement of motor rotor speed and motor shaft torque so that motor output power may be calculated. Speed and torque transducers are commonly used to directly measure the motor rotor speed and shaft torque. However, such transducers pose problems because they add expenses in added hardware and costly installations that are highly intrusive requiring motor down-time, which is unacceptable in many industrial applications.
Further, it may not even be possible to install such transducers, or other measuring equipment, because either the motors are buried and inaccessible inside a machine or there is no space to attach such transducers between the motor and the load. As such, methods have been developed in which motors are taken offline or removed from service so that power output may be determined. Often, the motors are removed to a remote room where testing is implemented in a controlled environment. However, because many industrial processes cannot be interrupted, traditional methods that require a motor be removed from service to determine its efficiency cannot be used.
A possible approach of evaluating motor efficiency, while keeping a motor in-service or online and avoiding the use of output transducers, is to use the pre-measured motor characteristic efficiencies for representative load conditions. Such efficiencies are often measured during motor development, and are used to predict the motor efficiency while the motor is in operation, or while in-service. This approach is nonintrusive in nature; however, its usage in practice is greatly limited by the fact that 1) the characteristic efficiencies under representative load conditions are not always available from motor data sheets, and 2) the characteristic efficiencies are generic data for a line of motors. Being generic, such information could differ from actual efficiencies for a specific motor due to many factors, such as winding characteristics, wide tolerances, inaccurate nameplate information, and different working environments, to name just a few reasons.
Therefore, it would be desirable to design an apparatus and method to non-intrusively and accurately determine motor efficiency while such motor is in-service, without the need for any add-on sensors.